SPIRITUAL DISTRACTIONS (Part three)

As God’s people, we have a responsibility to be good examples to those around us. If we lose sight of this responsibility even for a moment, we are in danger of having a spiritual accident. We don’t have any statistics for the leading cause of our spiritual accidents, but I would venture to say that, much like car accidents, it would be distractions.

So just what is a spiritual distraction?

Distractions from inside the vehicle accounted for 62 percent of the distractions reported, while distractions from outside the vehicle accounted for 35 percent.
Many of us can relate to driving on the freeway and trying to obey the speed limit as people rush on by us. This can be a serious distraction. A spiritual distraction could be the boss that rides you harder than your coworkers. It could be that coworker who takes credit for the work that you do. Maybe it’s the neighbor who makes too much noise when you are trying to sleep, or lets his trash blow into your yard. What if you own your own business? It could be that one customer who is never happy.

You could probably add many more ideas to this list, but when these types of trials and distractions happen, are we focused on Jesus?

The point is that when we allow these things to get to us, we are led into sin. Sin and bad attitudes are not good examples of how God wants us to be. Although it may often be difficult, we must maintain our cool and not allow ourselves to be caught up in what is happening around us.

Let’s take the example of the neighbor’s garbage that blows into our yard and consider some of the options you have. You can:

1. Take the garbage back to your neighbor’s yard and shred it to tiny pieces on their doorstep.
2. Call the police.
3. Go to your neighbor’s house and scream terrible things at him.
4. Knock on the neighbor’s door and explain the situation in a kindly fashion.
5. Cut off all contact with the neighbor and sneer when they look your way.

Which scenario would you choose? While it seems an easy answer, it is not what most often occurs. We often let our human nature kick in, and throw both common sense and God’s way right out the door.

Matthew 6:23 tells us; “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”